Divemastering at Sport Chalet

[Deuces]

I know how I feel about Sport Chalet and their awesome, great, superb, knowledgeable, and oh so very qualified Dive Dept. sales staff so it lead me to wondering what others thought about getting a Divemaster cert at Sport Chalet.

 

[Night Diver]

I know how I feel about Sport Chalet and their awesome, great, superb, knowledgeable, and oh so very qualified Dive Dept. sales staff so it lead me to wondering what others thought about getting a Divemaster cert at Sport Chalet.

Unless my sarcasm meter is off I assume your personal feelings are other than as expressed.

I think certifying shops are like universities. You can get a great education at a bad one and a bad education at a great one. Most of it depends on how much effort you yourself choose to put in to learning. Presumably by the time you are ready for a DM class you have significant diving experience, so you're not looking for the DM course to simply improve your own basic diving skills. Unless you have an existing relationship with a great teaching instructor, you'd just be going into a program at any dive shop based on feedback from third parties anyway. There are good instructors and bad instructors just about everywhere, including SC. SC does teach a lot of classes and so there's a lot of opportunity to be exposed to inexperienced divers during your internship portion of training. Sort of like interning in a shock-trauma center of a big public hospital in a big violent city. Bad surroundings good learning opportunity. So that would suggest that you'd learn a lot about assisting beginning divers. Of course in any individual case you can quibble with everything I just said.

Because you said Divemaster I assume you are limiting your post to the PADI Divemaster course and thus I haven't bothered to make the requisite derogatory comments about PADI training in general. I am sure someone else can handle that.

 

[Deuces]

You've made very good points. I keep forgetting, for the most part, about the importance of a quality instructor. Thus, there could actually be good instructors at SC despite what I think about their sales staff.

Thanks for pointing all that out!

And ya I was being sarcastic in the first part plus I meant PADI since I think SC is a PADI company.

 

[ianw2]

I think certifying shops are like universities. You can get a great education at a bad one and a bad education at a great one. Most of it depends on how much effort you yourself choose to put in to learning.

Truer words have seldom been spake, Night Diver!:wave-smil

Presumably by the time you are ready for a DM class you have significant diving experience, so you're not looking for the DM course to simply improve your own basic diving skills.

Seriously. Would a DM course significantly increase skills? Is that a realistic goal of the DM trainning?

Sort of like interning in a shock-trauma center of a big public hospital in a big violent city.

Oh man! That’s EXACTLY why I left Med School for Chemistry! The experience completely put me off having anything to do with medicine. Will the same happen for diving?:11:

The reason I ask is because I:
1 want to continue my learning;
2 have a really great instructor who I respect and trust;
3 have an opportunity to go through DM class starting in February.
4 am not sure I really want to have anything to do with the teaching side of diving.
SO…is DM trainning worth the effort for the learning?

 

[Don Wray]

Well, here we go. I'll finish my DM class Thursday. It has been quite the experience for a 50 year old man. The internship was fantastic, but I like working with students. The diving is great as long as you like doing basic ow over and over and over. The book work was very intense. Luckily, I'm retired and can spend the hours and hours it took me to study all the material. I also had all my previous books so that saved me the cost of buying them again. You must own all the books from basic through dm, plus I think it was $200 more for the dm stuff. Now for the really fun part. The watermanship skills are nothing to sneeze at. 400 yards freestyle (timed), 800 yards snorkel, mask and fins (timed) 15 minute tread last 2 with hands completely out of the water and the 100 yard rescue tow again, timed. You must make a minimum score or you don't pass. You must make better than a 3 on all 20 basic ow skills at demonstration quality, which is slowly, emphasizing the critical attributes and make it look natural. As far as diving, the only aspect I can recall that has any impact on normal everyday diving away from instruction and leading divers on tours is the theory. It's my understanding you can learn the theory by taking the NAUI Master Diver course. That course would be more beneficial toward making me a better non teaching diver, in my opinion. Most of the DM class is focused on becoming a certified assistant.

 

[Jorbar1551]

okay...i've heard all of your bad talking about sc employees. i work at a sc in norcal, and ill say that all of our regular scuba associates have far more scuba knowledge and skills that the dms that have come out of there in the last couple years. We have an AI, a dm thats been diving 20 years, and an ex combat diver that work in the dive shop. one of our dms that got cert'd in hawaii and came back here writes articles for scuba diver magazine as well as DAN's magazine.

Now...i've called down to most of the socal stores, and been down to a few, and ill say that about 50 percent of the people in the dive department dont know squat. most of the people that work the afternoon and night shifts are full or part time students that were hired to fill holes in the dive dept and maybe make some sales.

i think the instruction is good. i've taken my ow, aow, and a bunch of specialties from them. i've never been short changed in the classroom or the pool or even in the ocean. sc has to live up to a reputation that will keep them in business. they dont allow any instructor to show them a card and start teaching students like small dive shops do.

I think if you are questioning the instruction at sport chalet, there are other dive shops around San Diego. continue asking questions about SC's DM program as well as other shops DM'ing program. i would recommend getting on a dive club or going to different shops to find the right choice for you.

 

[chrisc]

I finished up my DM class a few weeks ago with a SC instructor. My wife and myself have taken several classes with my DM instructor, and he went above and beyond the PADI requirements. You can tell the instructors that are there to teach and those who are there to push students thru for the $$$. My DM instructor was the same one who I took my Rescue class with and each buddy team did the skill one at a time. My wife on the other hand instructor sent the entire class (14 students) out at once for each of rescue skills. They did not have the instructors slates, had a hard time watching the whole group. They pushed for the students to take more classes with them. My wife felt that she was in "cattle car" class.

I agree most of the dive dept. staff has no clue what good equipment, and what is out there besides what SC sells. I had a sales staff person ask what equipment I dove with, and they said they had never heard of Zeagle or Dive Rite...

 

[Jorbar1551]

like i said earlier...a lot of the people in the dive department are full time students that only got cert'd or that only dive when they go on warm water cruises.

 

[caseybird]

Seriously. Would a DM course significantly increase skills? Is that a realistic goal of the DM trainning?


The reason I ask is because I:
1 want to continue my learning;
2 have a really great instructor who I respect and trust;
3 have an opportunity to go through DM class starting in February.
4 am not sure I really want to have anything to do with the teaching side of diving.
SO…is DM trainning worth the effort for the learning?

I finished my DM class in October, it was an intense skill learning experience. Simply put, I did so much diving I couldn't help becoming a better diver. Taking responsibility for leading new divers forced me to get skills down pat, as second nature. I took the course at a great shop that has very high standards for satisfactory performance, and our internships went beyond PADI standards. Choose your Instructor carefully, find one that will challenge you enough to make the effort worthwhile.

 

[Deuces]

as i previously stated, yes, i was wrong and that there can indeed be good instructors at SC, i just need to find them out.

you are very lucky to have that rare SC store since you also confirmed how typically uninformed socal and even las vegas SC dive dept. employees are. from hearing how others have had good instruction, i definitely can't judge the instructors by the sales staff.

okay...i've heard all of your bad talking about sc employees. i work at a sc in norcal, and ill say that all of our regular scuba associates have far more scuba knowledge and skills that the dms that have come out of there in the last couple years. We have an AI, a dm thats been diving 20 years, and an ex combat diver that work in the dive shop. one of our dms that got cert'd in hawaii and came back here writes articles for scuba diver magazine as well as DAN's magazine.

Now...i've called down to most of the socal stores, and been down to a few, and ill say that about 50 percent of the people in the dive department dont know squat. most of the people that work the afternoon and night shifts are full or part time students that were hired to fill holes in the dive dept and maybe make some sales.

i think the instruction is good. i've taken my ow, aow, and a bunch of specialties from them. i've never been short changed in the classroom or the pool or even in the ocean. sc has to live up to a reputation that will keep them in business. they dont allow any instructor to show them a card and start teaching students like small dive shops do.

I think if you are questioning the instruction at sport chalet, there are other dive shops around San Diego. continue asking questions about SC's DM program as well as other shops DM'ing program. i would recommend getting on a dive club or going to different shops to find the right choice for you.